


To Switch Places

by rocksalts



Series: Suptober20 [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Coda, Episode: s15e15 Gimme Shelter, M/M, Magical Accidents, Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), Wish Fulfillment, body switch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocksalts/pseuds/rocksalts
Summary: 15x15 coda (sort of) wherein Dean accidentally flips a switch that puts him in Cas’ body, and vice versa.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Suptober20 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977244
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	To Switch Places

**Author's Note:**

> suptober20 day 16 prompt: switch it up! (ficlet) | destiel | ~ 2k words

Dean ran his hand along the wall, feeling the rough plaster under his skin until he reached a bump, something raised beneath the surface of the wallpaper.

“Did Rowena have a thing for uh…trick doors, or anything like that?”

Sam huffed a laugh from the other side of the storage room.

“Can’t say it sounds out of character. How come? You find something?”

By then Dean had peeled most of the wallpaper off of the raised surface without much difficulty. He was twisted awkwardly, back bent to reach into the space between the shelves where it was hidden.

He managed to finally rip the last bit off, and brushed away the remaining debris from what ended up being a metal box attached to the wall. Dean flipped it open, curiosity high for a moment before vanishing just as quickly.

“No, never mind. It’s just a light switch for something.” Dean flipped it, once, and looked around for any changes. Nothing. He flipped it back off, and then on again.

“Anything?” Dean asked.

Sam shrugged. “No? Pretty sure that’s just an old switch she covered up because it didn’t work. Rowena probably could have kept all of the electricity in this entire building running with just a flick of her wrist.”

Sam had a point. They were here for that exact reason, actually—to check one last time if any of her tomes said anything about how to defeat god. Because now…now they _had_ to find another way. After coming up empty at the bunker, Sam had suggested one last look around the apartment.

Unfortunately for them, no luck so far.

_Bzzt._

Sam took his phone out of his pocket and frowned down at it, fingers gliding over the screen to type.

“It’s Eileen. She thinks she might have something. I’m gonna…go…”

Dean waved him off, “Sure, go do your thing. I’ll keep looking here.”

He watched as Sam left and returned once again to the dusty shelves.

It was insane to think that not a single one of these had the answer. Dean rubbed at his mouth, wondering if it was even worth it to keep going, when he heard familiar footsteps stop a few feet behind him.

He didn’t need to look to know that it was Cas.

“Any luck?” Dean asked. They seemed to be banking a lot on “luck” these days.

Cas took another step, so Dean turned his shoulder to sort of face him. He was glad he hadn’t turned completely, because at the sight of Cas’ expression, Dean’s forcing his eyes away would have been made all the more obvious.

So, no luck there either.

“Dean, I know you’re angry,” Cas started. Dean shook his head, mindlessly moving books around the shelves to keep him occupied.

“I’m not,” he said. But he was. He _was_ …he was…

“You are.”

“Why would I be?” Dean asked the shelf, loud enough for Cas to hear. “You were just going to leave. Again. Without telling us.”

Silence. Dean glanced at him now, gripping something small in his hand (a hex bag or a crystal or something, he wasn’t paying attention) to ground him.

“Why?”

Cas looked down. “Jack…asked me not to tell you. He thought—”

Dean turned to him fully now, brows furrowed. “No. I’m not talking about Jack.”

Cas’ eyes widened just a fraction, but Dean didn’t spare a moment to decipher it. He was too…

“Why do you put me through this? Why can’t you just…imagine what it’s like for me to keep seeing you walk away? Sacrificing yourself? Getting killed? Why is it so hard to put yourself in my shoes? To—to switch places, for once?”

Cas opened his mouth and closed it again.

Dean took a deep breath, letting the anger simmer down from boiling to lukewarm. His eyes caught on the switch again, and suddenly he couldn’t remember which way it was facing when he’d first seen it. Up, or down? He flipped it again once, just to be sure, just to fill the silence, when the entire building went black.

It was a few seconds, or maybe a couple of minutes, before the lights came back on.

Dean wasn’t by the shelves anymore, which was weird. He didn’t remember moving, but it wasn’t entirely out of the question that he had. The darkness had been pitch, fumbling around was probably what had happened.

Sam came rushing in not long after, looking perplexed and a little winded.

“Dean? Cas? What the hell was that?”

“The power went off when—when—” He heard his own voice say. But he was pretty sure he hadn’t said anything.

Dean balked and looked over. Where he had once been standing was….well, _him_. But obviously _not_ him because he was right here, which was—

“Oh, shit.”

His voice was Cas’ voice. Deep, grumbly. His body….

Dean looked down to see himself clad in a trench coat and slacks and everything that screamed Cas. His heart clenched. He could smell Cas’ cologne on him, everywhere.

He thought for a moment that he might pass out, but then Sam was looking at him strangely, like he hadn’t heard him right, and Cas—the Cas he assumed was currently inhabiting his body—stood frozen a few feet away.

So Dean straightened in his new body, _Cas’_ body, it was _Cas’ body_ , and leveled Sam with his best Cas impression.

“He flipped a light switch. Everything’s fine.” Dean turned to Cas. “A word?”

Cas nodded jerkily and followed him past Sam and into a corner of Rowena’s apartment far enough for Sam not to hear.

“Dean, what are you doing? We have to tell Sam that we—that we—”

“That we got friggin _Freaky Friday_ ’d, I know. But we can’t. Not…not yet.”

Dean found Cas’ exasperated head tilt to look weird on his own face.

“Why is that?”

“Because this is _exactly_ what I was talking about! Look, I have no idea how this happened, I mean I knew that switch had some mojo crap in it—”

“And you still flipped it anyway?”

“The point is, my wish came true, Cas. I’m just asking for a day. _One_ day, and then we can try to figure this out and go back to being ourselves.”

Cas sighed. Dean watched the way his features were softer, now that Cas used them.

“Fine. One day.”

—

And it _was_ fine. At first.

They’d packed up and started home within thirty minutes after the _incident_ , which was what they were calling it, and managed to keep their mouths shut long enough for Sam to believe they were still themselves.

How Cas managed it, Dean had no idea. From his point of view, everything down to the way Cas breathed in his body just screamed “Cas”, and he would’ve hounded his brother for being oblivious if he hadn’t been jabbering about whatever Eileen had said on their call for the entire duration of their drive.

All Cas _really_ had to do was focus on driving and muttering a response here and there. Dean willed from the backseat with whatever angel mojo he’d recently inherited that Cas didn’t crash Baby, or else he might just break character and end this whole thing they had going here.

It must have worked, because they got to the bunker safe and sound about an hour later. Cas tried following him around a few times, but Dean gave him looks that said _don’t, run along_ , and surprisingly enough, Cas did. He had a feeling that Cas was probably just as curious as he was about this.

That being said, almost the first thing Dean did was run into Jack.

It wasn’t exactly difficult, seeing as the kid was prone to running into things. He had turned a corner, intending to go to Cas’ room, when Jack showed up with a gleeful smile.

“You’re back!”

Dean blinked at him. He knew Jack was child-like, but sometimes he acted so mature that Dean was sure he was at _least_ a teenager. He wondered now how much of that was a front, and what Cas had done to make Jack look at him like he was the sun. Especially after what Jack had told him yesterday.

“I…am, yes. How are you?”

Jack’s eyes were still filled with adoration. “I’m good. I was watching Scooby-Doo reruns while you guys were gone. Can you tell me about the time you guys met Shaggy and Scooby, again?”

Dean’s heart turned soft, despite his… _frustration_ with Jack for being so selfless and self-sacrificing. Like his dad. Well, like _all_ of his dads.

“Maybe later, k— _Jack_. Bedtime story,” He promised. Dean tried for a smile, and Jack grinned.

“Okay. I love your bedtime stories,” Jack said. His smile suddenly faded. “By the way, are Sam and Dean…around?”

Dean took just a brief moment to process that Cas _actually_ read the kid bedtime stories before nodding.

“Yes. They are. In the kitchen, I think.”

Did Cas talk like this, or was Dean worse than he thought at Cas impressions? It was at least enough to fool Jack, for now.

“You didn’t…tell them, right? About…”

Dean felt his insides twist. So this was what Cas had to do. Lie. Cas was doing a lot of that recently.

“No.”

“Good, because I was thinking, it’d be unfair of me to keep your secret if you didn’t keep mine. But, your secret is still safe with me, Cas.”

Jack patted his shoulder and left before Dean’s mind could catch up to what he was saying.

Secret? _Another_ secret?

He tried to reign his rage back down to a place of balance. In this body, who knew what he could do if he let it all out. Blow up the bunker, probably.

The rest of the day was almost pointless after that. The one thing he did try, between his conversation with Jack and his sulking about Cas, was to get a glimpse of Cas’ wings in the mirror. But he couldn’t figure out how to see into whatever dimension Cas kept them, so Dean gave that up pretty quickly.

After dinner, he visited Cas where he was watching TV in Dean’s room and closed the door behind him.

Cas let out a breath of relief and sat up in Dean’s bed.

“Finally. I’ve had enough of this today. I’d forgotten what being human was like. It’s very…time consuming.”

Dean nodded once. He approached the bed until he was at the foot of it, knees touching the mattress.

“I know,” was his response.

Cas did the head tilt again. “Yes, I’d assume so. You are human every day of your life.”

“No, Cas. I mean, I know. About your secret.”

Cas stared at him. “How?”

“Jack…Jack told me. Well, actually, he told _you_. But either way, I know now. You’ve been keeping more secrets from us. Did you think we wouldn’t find out?”

Cas stood up then, but didn’t try to close the distance.

“Of course I knew you’d find out. But I thought….I thought we’d have more time. I’m not anywhere _near_ happy enough yet, Dean. And with Jack…”

Dean turned the words over in his head. _Happy?_ What the hell was he talking about?

“Cas…what are you going to do?”

He shut his mouth— _Dean’s_ mouth—and Dean suddenly wished he had power over it again.

“Were you planning on leaving us again? Or worse, sacrificing yourself? After—after _everything_ , after trading places, do you still think I’m not enough for you to want to stay?”

Dean’s heart pounded. He didn’t want to hear the answer, didn’t want to know what Cas had done. What Cas couldn’t tell him.

It seemed like his body mirrored his emotions, because Dean saw himself begin to cry.

“It was to save Jack. It… Dean, I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t let you have yet another burden to bare because of me. And—and I did what you would have done.”

“What I would have done.”

“Yes,” Cas said. “At some point…Dean, at some point we switched. I’m not the man I was when you first met me. I am who I am thanks to you. So don’t blame me for taking a page out of _your_ book.”

Switched, huh? Dean took a step forward, feeling bigger now, even though Cas’ body was shorter than his in height.

His emotions were barely being held together as it was by a thin piece of twine that he knew existed there because of Cas. Now it was like the twine was being pulled, and his voice was tight with the last strain of it, a final effort before he snapped.

“So switch back.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr if you enjoyed, @rambleoncas  
> I post my suptober20 prompts there first !!


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